Todd Wells — on his way to victory in the 2011 Leadville Trail 100 — is hopeful the next year could buoy mountain bike racing as cycling’s governing bodies mull a rule that impacts local races like the Leadville Trail 100. (Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post)

Durango’s three-time Olympic mountain bike racer with two national cross-country titles said he’s never seen the UCI back down from any rule “no matter how ridiculous from bike weight to saddle angle.”

“They make a rule and that’s it,” Wells said.

The rule — 1.2.019 — was often overlooked in mountain biking, where UCI-licensed and professional athletes often competed in unsanctioned races like the Vail Mountain Games, Arizona’s Whiskey Off-Road and the Leadville Trail 100, which Wells won in 2011.

The country’s leading avalanche researchers — Ethan Greene, director of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center and Dale Atkins, president of the American Avalanche Association — sat down with The Denver Post this week to discuss avalanche safety and education.

“Singletrack High” follows a handful of California high school students through the 2012 NorCal League mountain biking race season, revealing how pedaling and racing mountain bikes can buoy a teen’s life at a time when most happily ditch the bike for a car.

Like the NorCal circuit profiled in “Singletrack High,” the Colorado league’s diversity is compelling. There are hard-core racers on carbon-fiber rides lining up next to kids on steel clunkers. Racers hail from both huge urban schools and tiny rural districts. Some are eyeing a podium. Others want simply to finish.

“Singletrack High” premieres in Colorado tonight — Thursday, April 4 — at the American Mountaineering Center in Golden (710 10th St.). Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for students.

Check it out and join the thousands of grown-ups who have muttered, “Man, I wish they had that when I was in high school.”

Welzel competed in the marathon Olympic trials five times and was named the Runner’s World Comeback Runner of the Year in 1988 after recovering from an automobile crash that broke her neck and put her in a body cast for three months.

Johnson was the first American to win the World Mountain Championships (1987).

Simon, a longtime Boulder resident, competed in the past five Olympic marathons for Romania, claiming a silver medal in 2000, and is a three-time medalist at the world championships.

Hobbs is a trail runner who has directed events since the 1980s. She is founder and executive director of the American Trail Running Association and a manager of the U.S. Mountain Running Team.

Two members of the 1963 expedition that put Americans on top of Mount Everest for the first time will be honored April 6 at the fourth annual Hall of Mountaineering Excellence gala at the American Mountaineering Center in Golden.

Expedition leader Norm Dyhrenfurth and the late Barry Corbet, who went on to become a pioneer in the disabled sports community after being paralyzed in a 1968 helicopter crash, will be inducted in a celebration marking the 50th anniversary of the expedition.

Other inductees include:

— Nick Clinch, who led expeditions that achieved first ascents of Gasherbrum in 1958 and Masherbrum in 1960.

— Jeff Lowe, a seminal force in modern ice climbing who made numerous first ascents in North America, the Himalayas and the Karakorum.

— Peter Metcalf, a pioneer alpinist in Alaska and CEO of Black Diamond.

The event includes a cocktail party and dinner. Tickets are $75. Information: 303-996-2755.

Mountaineer Mark Roberts is sharing his story – and gripping video – after he was struck by falling ice and enduring a horrifying slide down Parsley Fern Gully in the Snowdonia region of north Wales, a popular winter destination for climbers. (Not Scotland. Wales.)
Read Roberts’ interview with the British Mountaineering Council here.
Love how he reaches to check that the GoPro is still intact after the slide for life.

Whoa. This 18-second video – posted on Feb. 19 – shows a kid falling from a chairlift at Ski Santa Fe. Ski Santa Fe patrol director Cody Sheppard told the Santa Fe New Mexican that the 17-year-old Albuquerque teen was trying to throw a snowball from the chair when he slipped. He apparently dangled for several minutes – hanging on for a dozen lift poles on the Millenium Triple Chair – before falling 30 feet to 40 feet. The Santa Fe New Mexican reported the teen was airlifted to a local hospital following the Feb. 2 accident. Sheppard told the newspaper the teen spent a few days at the hospital and did not require surgery.
“There is something about being young and flexible, I guess, and just lucky the way you land,” Sheppard told the paper.

Now in it’s sixth year of releasing 12 videos every ski season, Salomon’s Freeski TV has more than established itself as a force in the increasingly congested world of ski films.

Produced by Mike Douglas, the Godfather of Freeskiing, Salomon’s short videos have grown from TV-oriented documentaries to full blown art. Encapsulating the graceful cinematography of, say , Sweetgrass Productions, with the charging action of Matchstick or TGR, Salomon Freeski TV has found the perfect formula for brief yet titillating ski films. (They could teach the big boys a thing or two on the brevity end.)
This season’s 10th episode, “The Burn,” is in my opinion, the outfit’s best yet, with stunning imagery and top-tier effects merging fire, ice and some mad skiing.

[media-credit id=101 align=”aligncenter” width=”495″][/media-credit] Arielle Gold has won four snowboarding halfpipe medals in the last month, including bronze at the Winter X Games.

Steamboat snowboarder Arielle Gold is living up to her name, with an historic four-medal streak in the last month. The 16-year-old early Friday took halfpipe gold at the Burton European Open in Switzerland. She led an all-American podium with veteran Kelly Clark taking second and Ellery Hollingsworth third. As the road to Sochi continues, Gold is primed for Olympic glory.

After last season’s victory at the Junior World Championship, the high-flying teen has stormed the professional ranks. Last month she won the FIS Snowboard World Championships in Stoneham, Quebec, with flawless style and technical tricks that included back-to-back 720s. A week later she climbed from alternate to the podium at Aspen’s Winter X Games, taking bronze with a rarely seen cab 900. Last week she took silver at the U.S. Grand Prix contest in Park City. For one of the youngest competitors in the halfpipe, Gold is leading a teenage revolution as the path to Sochi unfurls. (Japan’s 14-year-old Ayumo Hirano took gold in the men’s contest at the Burton European Open, on the heels of his silver at Aspen’s X Games last month.)

As Shaun White ramps up for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, all eyes will be watching him in the slopestyle comp next week at Aspen’s Winter X Games. He’s gunning to compete in both halfpipe and slopestyle in Sochi and is pretty much a lock for the halfpipe team. His push for slopestyle is less certain, despite his enthusiasm and an enviable list of slopestyle wins that eclipses his halfpipe tally.

After two seasons off from slopestyle competition to prepare for the 2010 Winter Olympics halfpipe, White’s return to the realm of money booters foundered. He failed to make the finals in the 2011 X Games and qualified last in the 2012 X Games. The next month he won the X Games slopestyle comp in Tignes, France with back-to-back double corks.

But the question has been whether White would develop the triple cork in time for a slopestyle showdown on the X Games Buttermilk course. Teenager Mark McMorris and Canadian Sebastian Toutant both have triple corks in their bag of tricks, but no one has thrown a triple flipping trick in slopestyle.

A couple videos posted Wednesday from White’s practice sessions in Breckenridge’s terrain park seem to indicate that he’s ready. And a showdown is on tap at Buttermilk.

Cyclist Lance Armstrong is interviewed by Oprah Winfrey in Austin, Texas, in this January 14, 2012, handout photo.

We don’t know yet what Lance Armstrong told Oprah Winfrey in an interview that will be aired Thursday and Friday, but if it’s true he admitted to her that he doped after a decade of defiance and strident denials, it’s time for his defenders to admit he is a cynical, amoral man, a fraud and a phony.

Not only did he orchestrate the most sophisticated doping program ever uncovered, he bullied others into participating and tried to destroy those who got in his way. Read the USADA report if you think I’m exaggerating.

And by the way, everyone who accused USADA of conducting a “witch hunt” owes USADA an apology, too.

With 15 inches out of the latest storm cycle, Winter Park ski patrollers started dropping ropes. The feeding frenzy Wednesday morning at Mary Jane saw a couple hundred powder pirates working hard to beat down the fresh.

[media-credit name=”Brad Torchia” align=”aligncenter” width=”495″][/media-credit] A downhill mountain biker races in one of five enduro stages at the Colorado Freeride Festival at Winter Park’s Trestle Bike Park last July. (Special to The Denver Post by Brad Torchia.)

Winter Park’s Trestle Bike Park will host the only U.S. stop of the first-ever Enduro World Series next summer, buttressing its position as the nation’s top bike park.

With enduro riding exploding, the Enduro Mountain Bike Association in October announced the creation of its own, UCI-free World Series, a seven-stop international tour tying together the largest events in enduro racing – France’s Enduro Series, Italy’s Superenduro races and the Whistler-born Crankworx contests. The group released the series’ race stops and dates last week.

European media outlets have reported rumors that Lindsey Vonn is dating Tiger Woods, but Vonn says there’s nothing to it

“We are just friends,” Vonn told me Saturday after winning her second World Cup downhill in two days at Lake Louise, Alberta. “My brother was the ski instructor for his kids this November in Vail. Guessing that’s where it came from.”

Last year there were rumors in the European media that Vonn was dating Tim Tebow. That was untrue as well.

Beaver Creek — Marco Sullivan’s third-place finish in a downhill at Lake Louise last weekend got a lot of attention going into downhill training this week at Beaver Creek, but one of the team’s young racers has been creating a buzz as well.

Travis Ganong, 24, won Wednesday’s downhill training run and was fourth Thursday. So how does he approach Friday’s race?

“I’m going to do the same exact things I did in the training runs,” said Ganong, who is from Squaw Valley, Calif. “I’ve been fast all summer long in training, and it’s really cool to see on a World Cup hill I can be fast training here, too. The skiing is there, the speed is there, so I’ll just stick with the plan, have fun and enjoy it.”

If Ganong needs any advice, he can turn to Daron Rahlves, the man who was his idol growing up. Rahlves, also from the Squaw Valley area, was one of the team’s most successful downhillers before retiring in 2006. Rahlves won here twice and was on the podium three other times.

“He actually called me (Thursday) morning when I was on the chairlift, going up for inspection,” Ganong said. “We talked a bit about a couple sections on the course. It’s good to have that as a resource.”

Vail Pass — OK, so there isn’t much snow in the high country. In fact there’s very little.

But there was a full moon. And when I cover the Beaver Creek World Cup, I like to spend one night at Jay’s Cabin, a backcountry hut three miles west of Vail Pass.

I knew my overnight backcountry ski trip Wednesday might well be a backcountry hiking trip, but I was undeterred. And I’m glad I was.

It wound up being two miles of hiking and a mile of cross country skiing, but the moon was beautiful. I had the hut to myself, made myself some hot apple cider, went out on the deck and admired the moonlit landscape, made a nice fire in the fireplace and watched it flicker until I fell asleep. I got to see a nice sunrise Thursday morning and then headed back to Beaver Creek.

It certainly wasn’t like last year when I had plenty of snow to ski upon, and the surrounding hills shone white in the moonlight. But it was a rewarding mountaineering experience, and I’m glad I did it.

Even with limited snow, we need to count our blessings. Our mountains are always beautiful, even when they’re not as white as they’re supposed to be.

Beaver Creek — Even as Beaver Creek hosts men’s World Cup racing this week, many are thinking about the world alpine ski championships coming here Feb. 3-15, 2015.

The trail for a new women’s downhill — visible to the left of the men’s course in the attached photo — was cleared last summer. It figures to be tough and demanding, as it should be. The men’s course is considered one of the most technical tracks in the world.

“Thank God Beaver Creek wanted to do that and develop the hill,” former Canadian downhill great Todd Brooker said. “This will be the premier downhill for women. Like Cortina (Italy) is premier because it’s beautiful, but not because it’s particularly testing. This one will be testing. It will be amazing.”

Vail previously hosted world championships in 1989 and 1999. The world championships have been held in the U.S. only one other time, at Aspen in 1950.

Mikaela Shiffrin, 17, of Eagle-Vail, races during the first women's slalom run at the Nature Valley Aspen Winternational Audi FIS Ski World Cup at Aspen Mountain in Aspen on Sunday, Nov. 25, 2012. Shiffrin was the 10th qualifier to make it to Sunday's second run.

ASPEN — Eagle-Vail racer Mikaela Shiffrin sits in 10th place after the first run of Sunday’s World Cup slalom on Aspen Mountain but may be too far back to challenge for the podium in the second run.

Aspen — Eagle-Vail phenom Mikaela Shiffrin pulled off another eye-opening breakthrough Saturday, cracking the top 10 for the first time in a World Cup giant slalom.

Shiffrin, 17, finished ninth for the top U.S. finish in a race won by Tina Maze of Slovenia. Shiffrin has been on the podium twice in slalom races, but Saturday’s race was her seventh World Cup giant slalom start, the second time she qualified for a second run.

Four-time World Cup overall champion Lindsey Vonn finished 21st, an excellent result given severe fatigue in the aftermath of an intestinal illness that put her in the hospital for two days this month.

Vonn crumpled in the finish area after finishing her second run, looking like a cross country skier at the end of a 50-kilometer race.

“I feel like I did a 100-mile marathon and I’d never run more than five miles in my life,” Vonn said. “It was a struggle. I tried so hard to get energy back up for second run, but I just didn’t have it.”